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Whenever he’s looked at the horizon, Natino Chirico has always spotted new shores. The shore where the smoking top of the Etna volcano stands out against the Ionian Sea background, or the shore of the small town of Ganzirri, which you think you can touch with your hand if you’re standing on Scylla, and reminds you of Homer’s monsters. Now, for him, has come the moment of the extreme beyond, a place where the oceans’ only shores are those of imagination. His Diver – an outstandingly plastic subject – plunges into unknown waters, now. The strength and courage expressed by that figure can only be highlighted. Someone who has faith in himself is always ready to jump into infinity. Chaplin Tramps, covered in countless squirts of color, have started marching to the other side of the world. They could never be stuck inside a canvas anyway: movement is an evident trait in their creator’s painting style. The same is true for other celebrities, driven to the farthest destinations by Chirico’s unmistakable chromatic approach. I picture them walking across different continents in a single line, just like primordial-looking animals recalling the primal spur of life, echoing that mysterious big bang which made us all – humans and beasts alike – living creatures. Leading that fabulous imaginary procession, none other than the sweet and crazy horseman from La Mancha, Don Quixote, the only one able to see things that other people cannot even imagine: adventure in every-day routine, heroism in apparent squalor, friendship where everything is indifferent, love in the most sordid misery. Don Quixote marches on, jousting high on his nag, a silhouette parading through the red hue Natino chooses as the only landscape, well able, beyond a myriad of details, to evoke through images the oneiric strength of Cervantes’s character. El ingenioso hidalgo is none other than Natino himself, an undeclared self-portrait. It invites us to follow him, to become – just for the duration of a show – his Sancho Panzas, to share with him a fairytale in which existence is concealed. That’s because if a windmill can incarnate the spirit of a giant with a thousand arms, we all can find (again) our soul in a painting created by a true artist, something we thought was lost but it’s there, right next to us, within a hand’s reach: all we need to grab it is a little imagination. Beware, though, not to put your white gloves on around Chirico’s paintings. You need to get your hands dirty of the spots created by his volcanic paintbrushes. Much like the Tramp’s cane, they look ungainly, disoriented, but they really point somewhere. They really are drops breaking free from the canvas, polychrome beads of sweat, water, blood. They’re tears: tears of pain, and tears of joy. Enjoy the show. Enzo Romeo